On Friday, Geraldine, Pierre and Adele came to visit for the gouter. I have made a tarte au citron and we had a great visit. I was asking Geraldine to translate parts of the cookbook she gave me the night of the French fiesta, and as she tried to explain to me the different instructions for gougeres au fromage (fancy cheese puffs), we decided to just give it a try.
They didn't turn out *quite* right -- the first batch, in fact, could have been used as baseballs -- but I think the temperature in the oven here was too high as the second batch turned out a bit better. But it was so much fun to cook with a friend (and one who knew how to mettez, versez, otez, remettez, beurrez, saupoudrez and more).
Kate, Liv and Adele played beautifully. Liv said that Adele was beginning to understand them -- and they were beginning to understand her. At last!
Jack and Pierre kicked the soccer ball around for a while, looked at Jack's Pokemon card collection (who knew it would be as popular in France as it was in Japan and Canada?), and then decided to sit down to play poker. Eventually, John, Geraldine and I were drawn into the fun of Texas Hold'em, where Jack and Pierre promptly beat us (and Jack squeaked out a narrow victory over his friend). Fun French fact of the day -- the phrase for "I fold" in French is je me couche (I put myself to bed). Below, you can see Jack and Pierre sorting out Legos to make them work as poker chips.
Saturday held two social outings for us. First, in the afternoon we went to a gouter at Marine's, the daughter of my host family from Dijon. Her four girls and our three kids all played SO well in their huge backyard. We *may* be starting to make plans to arrange a marriage between Jack and either Penelope or Capucine... I'm sure they won't mind, right?
That night, we went to a dinner at Muriel and Sylvie's, who are connected to the local Buddhist community and who are friends of Geraldine and Thomas (who were invited to the dinner as well). They live in a wonderful old house in a small town about 30 minutes south of Beaune -- full of old wooden beams, great nooks, and twisty stairs. We had a very interesting, fun, and late night out.
Rounding out our incredibly social weekend, we had the great pleasure of having lunch here for a friend from university days who is living in Geneva with her husband and 11-week-old daughter. We hadn't see Cynthia and Lincoln in 12 years (although we had exchanged many an email and letter in the interim), and it was such fun to meet sweet Melina. It was a perfect spring day, with fresh food from the market, a walk up to Coconut Mountain (Mont-St-Victor) and to Rapunzel's Tower (the remaining tower from the old chateau in town), and some lovely cheeses (including a new favorite -- Epoisse). The kids fell in love with little Melina (and so did we).
The other excitement of the weekend is that I decided to give the kids haircuts. In the past, this has not always ended up working so well for us (especially Jack). Thus, this sign:
In case you have trouble, it says "I NOT GITING MI HAIR CUT" (his spelling is better in French at this point in his life). But I just trimmed around the ears, and he ended up looking like this:
Pas mal, n'est pas? Kate and Liv got just a trim, too... and new kerchiefs that are all the rage at their school right now:
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